Vespae VI - Finished - Tick 289

After a slow coast to the end the game is finally over and I'm pleased to have won this one.

Innoble and Vik Ia proved to be the right ally choices and a focused team game on their part brung home the victory. There's definitely a few things to disect from this game though so I'll briefly cover those.

Why did I win?

1) I made the right diplomatic choice about who to ally with. I got a bonus ally because Innoble brought in Vik Ia which wasn't originally my intent (I was planning to two-man.) 

2) Nobody managed to exploit the fact I would have needed to defend multiple (too many) points in the early game due to the wormholes. I also got both wormholes without much of a fight. Innoble/CRISPR ceded the eastward wormhole end to me and Bubblegum never fought back in the northward. As the game develops the tactical advantages given by wormholes (ability to have 1 fleet in 2 places freeing up fleets to do useful stuff, and the ability to build and hide an attack fleet at the other end until it's needed) become really important.

3) CRISPR was overly generous in his expansion. He was planning to ally with me before he quit to focus on Abyss (congrats) but he didn't target an even or balanced share of stars. This meant I was able to get a huge amount of stars in the south east.

4) Cypher and LimitingFactor didn't ally MiniMe. I don't know what happened here because Cypher was certainly concerned about a 3-way alliance but for whatever reason MiniMe was worried about a LimitingFactor attack and left his south very exposed to me.

How could I have lost?

1) An early game attack from two neighbours exploiting the fact I'd have been stretched (and taking advantage of the awkward geography I had in terms of hyperspace distance between my stars). I think I proactively protected against the biggest risks via diplomacy but I was fortunate that Bubblegum/Inerz never really threatened me, and MiniMe would have needed help.

2) MiniMe and LimitingFactor attacking me through MiniMe's space in the early middlegame. They'd have been able to bring a lot of ships to bear and I think there was a window of opportunity. These two never seemed to collaborate though.

3) Convincing one of my allies that eventually they needed to split from the 3 in the interest of the game. This would have been hard to pull off but there might have been an angle there.